CHENNAI : As a new mother, Coimbatore-based Swati Jagdish would often visit a park in her neighbourhood. Soon, she started interacting with other women there. They would sit under a tree and share experiences of motherhood. This open forum gave her an idea — to take this to social media, normalising conversations around birth positions, lactation, gentle parenting, etc. Around eight years ago she started @mayas_amma, a page that opened up dialogues in a field that was thought of as taboo.
Now, Swati has been ranked 73, under the Changemaker category in Forbes India’s list of India’s Top 100 Digital Stars 2023. “I am feeling quite happy about it. When brands are approaching with pay and recognition, somebody volunteering to recognise the work you do is refreshing,” says the sexual health educator. Swati notes that this recognition is “even better” because it promotes education and awareness among the public. This is in tandem with her goal to make sex-positive, safe, and healthful discussions at home a regular practice.
One step at a time
Previously, Swati was part of a mother-to-mother support group, the Coimbatore Parenting Network. Here, she started sharing her knowledge on breastfeeding, attachment parenting, and natural birth. Now, she is its trustee. “The ongoing real-time awareness in the city translated into social media when I realised that more people will be getting to know these pan India,” she says.
First came the Facebook page in 2015, then the Instagram page in 2016. She posted content on lactation, parenting, pregnancy, childbirth, using baby carriers or cloth diapers, and following gentle parenting as a principle. These topics naturally starts dialogues on sex education.
Swati believes that evolving and growing with the content produced has driven her to explore subjects and present them with different perspectives. “Give them (people/content consumers) both, the pros and the cons, so that they can make an informed decision,” she says. She is currently studying detransitioning and will soon delve into this subject. Apart from creating short videos on it, she is also recording a new version of her workshop that will help people understand the process. This will also be later released on her app, Maya’s Amma, for further reference.
Striking a balance
Swati is a passionate storyteller. At any given time she has around 300 scripts and subjects ready to talk about! “I can weave any subject into a story and narrate it in a way that people can easily understand,” she adds.
The issues on her feed are balanced. While a few are from her own life experiences and the topics she wants to address, some others are her followers’ requests who belong to all age categories and genders. “My primary target audience was parents, but these days, many teenagers started following me because I have that parent image,” she says.
Supporting her in her endeavours are her friends and family. “Since I didn’t jump into social media one fine day to talk about a taboo subject, it was not a shock for anybody,” she shares. But trolling does find its way, and in August 2023, she was accused of encouraging children to watch porn. “People who know me personally or have attended at least one workshop of mine, know who I am. Talking about boundaries, and being a part of the industry for eight years, I know which troll to give importance to and which not to,” she says. Swati firmly believes that everybody is an individual at the end of the day who wants to have fun and grow. So it is better to prioritise each role that comes along with age, embrace the responsibilities and explore the opportunities to shine. “Today, both the mother and content creator roles are important to me. I learned a lot in my mother’s role, but I have to bring in my creativity in some way. Everything gets equal attention,” she says.
Hoping to bring a change, Swati aims to continue breaking taboos by indulging in conversations, normalising the use of words and terms, and narrating stories on such subjects, and creating a safe environment for the generations to follow.